Fall of the House of Usher
by The Carnivorous Muffin
Summary: At the age of seven Harry Potter summons the demon once known as Sebastian Michaelis under a different master and must grow to face his own warped destiny knowing that all roads lead to the jaws of a black bird.
1. Chapter 1

There were no true dark rituals.

The burning incense, virgin sacrifices, chanting faceless men, these were superfluous details added in for the razzle dazzle. Power was contained in the simplest and most basic of actions, a wish that rises above all others until it was all but screaming, in the end it was not the wand waving or the written runes that would make the difference.

Harry James Potter summoned the monster that would massacre his relatives without a conscious thought when he was only seven years old.

There'd been no real build up to the event, he'd been unhappy anyone could see that, but he hadn't been filled with hatred. His life had been too monotonous for any anger to fester and if he felt any strong emotions at all it was the pang of loneliness for his dead parents and a wish that maybe one day his family would come to love him.

Still it happened all the same.

He'd been in his cupboard, thrown in after some unimportant event featuring the dreaded funny business, gripping his knees with white knuckles wishing that he could just get out and go. Oh, the places you'll go, if only he could get out. It was perhaps the most genuine prayer to an unresponsive God that he had ever made in his life. Please, let me out.

As a seven year old, a child, he could not really be held accountable for the bargain he made. The specifics over time became lost and almost unnecessary. It was known that there was a raven under the stairs that day that it peered at him with eyes the color of mulberries, and together they made a covenant whose nebulous wish was as unclear as it was desperate. Years later it would become difficult to even remember if there was a wish at all only that there was a seal etched in purple on his left hand in the shape of a pentagram and that it bound him to the other tie surer than any leash ever could.

He did remember his first order.

"I want to go home."

He had not yet started wearing glasses but even so his vision was blurred by tears as he addressed the tall, dark haired, red eyed man who stared down at him with that leering inhuman expression. His clothes itched against his skin and the thin mattress he was sitting on creaked when he shifted and somehow even though he had always lived in Number 4 Privet Drive he knew it wasn't really home for him.

The man with the red eyes had smiled, taken both of Harry's hands into his, folding his own black nailed fingers over them and said, "Of course, young master, all you had to do was ask."

The demon had not been summoned for his comfort or his mental wellbeing it had been summoned to fulfill a contract. In that first moment the boy hadn't realized that his new friend was not a he but an it, the demon's first action was to remedy that misjudgment.

It was over before the boy had even made it out of the unlocked door so that when he stepped into the living room it was like stepping into the fires of Guernica where the walls were dripping with blood.

He stood there, blankly, his soul erased as he took in the dull horror of severed limbs and pumping arteries of fresh corpses. His fingers twitched and his jaw clicked as words and lifeless screams failed to pass through his dry throat.

"I couldn't very well leave them alive, young master; it would be negligent to overlook the injustices done to you. It was why I was summoned after all."

(It was not why he was summoned, they both knew that, but the boy could hardly say anything at that point and the demon was hardly willing to contradict himself.)

The demon in the guise of a bird in the guise of a man walked over to him and once again took the boy's hand with that same smile, "Now then, I believe you wanted to go home?"

One day, years later, an old man told him that he would accomplish great things with the brother wand of a dark lord. He thought of himself, sitting alone in the cupboard, when outside the walls were painted in blood.

Great things were also in some way terrible.

**Author's Note: Spawned from the challenge given to me by Lee Anna Kindred. A prologue so that I can time skip past childhood while still capturing some audience interest. I'll be honest while I'm interested in this idea I have many fics already in the works so update time on this might be a while. Thank you for reading feel free to review, please, I like reviews.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Black Butler**


	2. Chapter 2

Severus Snape's first thought on seeing Harry Potter was that despite being quite small for his age, his large green eyes, and his pale delicate features he looked old. It was an artificial age, one that showed itself in the shadows beneath the eyes, in the grim set of his smile, and in the inherent distrust of strangers.

The house itself was interesting; for one thing it was not a house but a shop, a very old one by the look of it. Located on the edge of London's east end it seemed to have that shady criminal edge to it that deterred customers. Harry Potter had caught him outside staring at the sign, his first words to Severus weren't asking who he was or if he was looking for someone, but instead "It's a funeral parlor."

The inside was rather dusty, filled with coffins but also with several oddities like beakers and jars of unknown materials that Severus hesitated to think were muggle in nature. When he first met Potter there wasn't an adult in sight.

The boy was oddly dressed by the most eccentric of standards, wearing clothing that was well made and durable but in clashing bright colors, his left hand was covered by a thin fingerless glove but there was nothing on his right. The boy looked at him though with eyes that reminded him not of the Death Eaters but the more war harrowed Order members who had escaped a little more jaded but alive at the end of it.

It was good, he supposed, to see that the boy was indeed alive as Albus' instruments had predicted. Severus wasn't sure how he felt about the prospect of Harry Potter being alive, he had been torn for many years on the subject. His instinct reaction was that Potter's son didn't deserve to live, that those genetics should not be passed on into the world, and that if Lily had to die then her son whose life she had sacrificed hers for should also perish. Thinking deeper on it though he would always see Lily, Lily who in the end his actions had killed when he told the dark lord o fhis prophecy, and he couldn't help but feel some small amount of shame that he hated her son without ever having laid eyes on him.

At the time Severus didn't want to think about that though, instead he moved onto his next task presented by Albus, discovering who had taken Harry in and what had happened on that night in 1987 when the Dursleys were found in pieces. Those questions had been resounding in their minds for five years and no matter the divination techniques or tracking charms they used they could not find an answer as to where young Harry Potter was if he was not strewn among the living room with his relatives.

(He had seen many corpses in his tenure as a dark wizard, many muggle bodies hurled into a corner as if they were pieces of trash, but that scene in Number 4 Privet Drive had imprinted itself into his memory as being one of the most brutal he had witnessed. Part of his reluctance in coming to face Harry Potter did not extend from his hatred of James Potter or his guilt over the death of Lily but rather from the aftermath that he and Albus had laid witness to in what they thought were the peaceful suburbs.)

"Where's your guardian?" This caused a change of expression on the boy's face, an unwilling smile broke out on his lips, one that was a bit twisted as if Severus had unwittingly made a rather cruel joke.

"He's out." He said quickly and again the lips twitched as if he found his next thought to be particularly amusing, "Would you like to talk to him?"

Something about the way he said it, as if it was the last thing that any sane man should want to do, made Severus hesitate in his answer. Potter had been very young at the time, only seven, and Albus and Severus had been left wondering if Potter would be fully aware of the situation he was in at such a young age or if he would be kept ignorant of it. It seemed however that Potter was at least partially aware that some things were dangerous, more so than most eleven year olds, and that made Severus more than a little wary.

"Yes, I believe I would."

"Okay then," Harry said but made no move to reach for a telephone or an owl but instead sat where he was as if the words were enough to summon his guardian from the ether, "I'll go get some tea while we wait."

A few minutes later the boy returned with two beakers filled with tea and handed one to Severus before reclaiming his seat on one of the empty coffins. The boy didn't seem to be one for chat, and Severus wasn't sure whether he found that relieving or alarming, he hadn't wanted to listen to Potter's (Lily's) son chatter but the strained silence where the boy's eyes simply weighed him and quietly judged his worth was hardly better.

After what seemed like an eternity someone walked into the shop, his entrance announced by the ringing of a small bell on the door. His first thought was that the man was not a wizard or otherwise pretending to be a muggle, a wizard would typically apparate into the house or otherwise floo, no one simply walked through their own front door. Then he remembered some of the more mysterious jars lining the shop's walls and again rethought that statement.

The man was certainly dressed like a muggle, wearing a black formal suit that clashed to alarming degrees both with his surroundings and Harry Potter's more colorful outfit. However the man didn't walk like the average muggle; there was something dangerous to his confident movements towards them. His hands were gloved which was odd considering the July heat outside the shop and yet it seemed as if he was very comfortable in them and lost no dexterity with the extra fabric on his skin. His hair was very dark, perhaps dark than Potter's, and his eyes were an odd shade of brown that for a moment seemed almost to be the same red that the Dark Lord's had been.

For a Death Eater's disguise it would be too reminiscent of the Dark Lord for any of them to feel confidence wearing that face. Albus and he, early on in their investigations, had crossed most of the Death Eaters as they were either in prison or too unstable to manage to keep the boy alive for a lengthy period of time, that cool confident smile and those eyes simply reaffirmed Severus' suspicions that whoever this wizard or man was he had not worked for the dark lord.

"Entertaining guests, Harry, you know we're only open on Sunday's by appointment." The man tsked slightly and ran a hand through the boy's dark curls.

The boy's expression towards the man was one that Severus couldn't quite decipher, there was devotion there, admiration, but also wariness, and a hint of fear and bitterness. He looked at the man as if he had no idea what he was capable of or what he might choose to do next.

"He wanted to see you." Harry said before adding, "He has a letter."

"Oh, he wanted to see me?" The man asked as if somewhat surprised but delighted all in the same instant. It was the same brand of delight the Dark Lord had shown when being offered a mudblood who didn't know his place.

Harry gave a small hm of acknowledgement, not quite a yes or a no, but rather something non-committal in between that allowed him to distance himself from Severus and whatever his fate might be.

The man turned towards Severus a more charming smile now plastered onto his face rather than the shark like one that had been there earlier, "So then, what may I do for you today?"

He then proceeded with a wary eye on the adult into the typical Hogwarts introductory spiel Minerva usually had the misfortune of giving out. The man, if he was pretending to be a muggle, didn't even pretend to look shocked or surprised or even disbelieving of the existence of magic. It was as if he was deliberately leaving the decision up to Severus, muggle or wizard, and rubbing it in his face when Severus couldn't make up his mind.

(Overlaid on top of the man's expression Severus saw what had been left of the Dursleys when he and Albus arrived, the slow whirring of the ceiling fan and blood still dripping down the walls and from the ceiling in steady intervals. It must have been those eyes, it brought back too many memories of the Dark Lord.)

His attempts to gather information on the boy were similarly unsuccessful. It'd been after Severus had finished explaining the letter and had received a vague and distracted confirmation from the boy that he would be attending. They'd been left sitting there in silence, the man watching him expectantly as if waiting for some other bit of information to come and looking almost pleased that Severus was remaining silent, and the boy just staring at the letter as if he wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

Severus wasn't quite sure how to approach it because had it been any other child he would not have had prior information about the boy. If he asked what happened to the Dursleys and how the boy managed to end up at a shop called 'The Undertaker's" in London then he would also have to explain why Harry Potter was important enough to warrant such scrutiny. Severus was quite determined that if Harry Potter was ignorant of being the boy who lived then he was not going to be the one to inform him. It had taken quite the argument, and the mention of the life-debt left unpaid as well as Lily's sacrifice and Severus' involvement in the whole thing, to get him to come at all.

So he started vague, "Your parents went to Hogwarts." He said trying to school his face so that it did not betray his nostalgia for his friendship with Lily or his bitter hatred of Potter. Harry didn't seem to notice anything odd, he blinked a few times at Severus in surprise, but the man smirked as if everything was written all over Severus' face. He checked his occlumency barriers and searched for the tell-tale probing of a legillimens but there was none to be found.

"Really?" The boy asked showing his first signs of real enthusiasm in the conversation, it made his whole face light up, so that he appeared to come alive in front of Severus. Suddenly he looked like a normal little boy and the juxtaposition was so great that Severus found himself thinking how unnaturally old the boy had seemed before.

"Yes, I knew them quite well. I knew Lily had a few relatives, the Dursleys, but forgive me I can't seem to place your guardian."

The boy paled a bit at the mention of the Dursleys, so he did know, but he did not move to speak about them or elaborate on Severus' observation. No it was the man, with that too cheerful smile, who waved his hand and responded, "I'm afraid I'm a little more removed from the family tree than that."

He didn't offer his name or any other information leaving Severus in the dark with no polite way to steer the conversation forward. Too invasive and Harry Potter might choose not to attend Hogwarts at all and with the prophecy unfulfilled it was instrumental that Potter attend Hogwarts or so Albus had always said.

"It is a bit odd though, that you wound up with your more distant relative rather than the Dursleys, Petunia was your mother's sister." He observed instead.

Again Harry said nothing but appeared to be growing steadily grimmer as the conversation progressed, perhaps remembering whatever it was that had dismembered his relatives into shapes so unrecognizable it had taken truly advanced spells to reassure themselves that Harry Potter's blood was not somewhere in that mess.

"He did live with them, for six years, but in the end they proved unfit for parenting." The man responded, "But this is all rather intrusive for a first meeting, isn't it professor Snape?"

And thus any efforts at gathering more information were efficiently cut by the man in black. Severus couldn't help but feel he had been expertly played by a man who was a master at his craft. He'd thought about legillemency for a few moments, if the man was truly a muggle his secrets would be open for Severus to see, but that doubt about the man's true nature stopped him.

In the end he told Albus that in spite of his rather eccentric muggle disguise that was accurate in some manners but not in others he felt strongly that the man was a dark wizard. He had little to go on for evidence, only that sinking feeling when being in the same room as him, and the constant reminders of the Dark Lord that had been there. The man had been charming, polite, and seemingly quite normal but he had an edge that he had not bothered to hide in front of Severus. The man, he told Albus, wants to be found out.

When Albus had asked if Harry Potter himself was dark, like the young Tom Riddle had been, he'd paused and tried to think back on the young boy and found that he couldn't categorize him as dark or light merely odd and withdrawn. He'd given Albus a noncommittal answer of not being able to tell in such a short amount of time and said that they'd watch for signs of the dark arts when he arrived at school but with the memory of those cold green eyes that had seemed so flat he wondered if such a label as dark or light could really capture that expression.

In the end Harry Potter, in spite of being a prophesized child, had not held Severus' attention it was that man and the parting gaze he had given Severus, "Catch me if you can." Those red-brown eyes had seemed to say.

* * *

For a long time the demon didn't have a name. He had explained to Harry, after taking human form and slaughtering his relatives like a mad butcher, that demons didn't have names and that typically it was up to the human master to assign one. Standing in terror in the remains of his relatives trying not to break into hysterics or otherwise vomit he'd been far too distracted at the time to take in the words properly.

They left Number 4 Privet Drive fairly swiftly, the demon saying something about it being too soon for Harry to go catatonic, and left for a fancy hotel in downtown London. Harry had never seen anything so pretty, everything glittered or was otherwise colorful, the carpets were an old and distinguished red and looking up at the ceiling he could see every color imaginable in the tiny crystals hanging from the chandeliers.

He felt small and dirty and covered in blood and disease in that place.

In the room after Harry had been given a bath by the demon, which had made him jumpy because the Dursleys rarely ever touched him and never in a way that was a simple hand on the shoulder like the demon, the demon had sat him down on the bed to discuss Harry's future.

Some day, not then, maybe not for a long time, the demon was going to eat his soul. They'd made a contract, there was no backing out, no escape from it, even if Harry tried killing himself first it would not work. Harry took all of this in, not understanding all of it, with large frightful eyes that couldn't help but see what remained of his relatives.

"Your wish was… rather vague." The demon said his eyes almost glowing in the half lit room, not red like Harry had expected but a reddish-purple with slitted pupils like a cat, "Normally I, or any other demon for that matter, wouldn't have bothered with such a request but you have a rather interesting soul so I decided to make an exception."

Harry then tried to remember what he wished for, in the cupboard hugging his knees and trying not to think of spiders, but it kept slipping away from him in the carnage that had been waiting outside.

"What this means is that we'll deal with the issue of your soul and my payment when we see fit as there's no set goal or time limit which you've set for yourself, there's no need to discuss the finer details now, until then I am yours to command and you may have whatever you wish."

Harry nodded, a small distracted nod, still thinking about everything that had happened and how it all seemed like a terrible dream even though the bed was so soft and the bath had been so warm. The Dursleys had always said he was a no good and stupid but at the end of the day he really was neither, even at seven he knew that whatever he wished did not include bringing the Dursleys back and returning to the cupboard like it never happened. As much as he wanted to say that, tears gathering at the corner of his eyes and the demon just looking at him and looking so human too, he knew that he just couldn't ask for something like that.

Whatever you wish didn't include most things Harry would have wished for; his parents alive, the Dursleys alive, for the Dursleys to like him, for kids at school to like him. Whatever you wish was expensive hotel rooms with warm baths and soft fluffy beds, and that was nice, but he wanted his parents more.

The demon had let Harry sob himself to sleep then, putting an arm around the boy's shoulder and just holding him, in the only horrible affection Harry felt he had ever known and Harry had just sobbed until he couldn't any more.

The next morning the demon had asked him what Harry wanted to name him. Pushing around the room service ordered breakfast of eggs with eyes that felt very tired in spite of the long sleep Harry thought about it, "You don't really have a name though, right, so why do you want one?"

The demon had looked a bit stunned at that, not anything very visible, a slight widening of the eyes and a slackening of the facial expression like he'd never been asked that before and certainly hadn't expected Harry to. The demon caught himself soon enough and he was giving Harry a slight smile, one Harry hadn't seen yet, a more genuine happy smile than the others had been which had all had an edge to them, "Oh it's not really for me, Harry, it's for you and I suppose for other humans. If we go out in public I'm going to have to be called something."

Harry guessed that was true but he didn't give the demon a name right then, he had the feeling that the demon needed a good name, one that fit really well. He couldn't be named something like Dudley or even Harry because it just didn't fit at all. He needed a human name that wasn't really human, or at least, that's what the seven year old Harry Potter thought.

For the first few months they had moved around a lot, always in really fancy hotels that Harry had never dreamed of seeing, and they visited a lot of famous places in London and throughout England. The demon always had interesting things to say about things, apparently he'd spent a lot of time in England, he had always liked England he said, "The English have such a penchant for tragedy."

He'd been lots of interesting places in England. He'd even been in the Tower of London before it became open to the public. They'd been looking at the building and the ravens outside that didn't look too much different than the demon himself, "Victoria was having a slight disagreement with my master at the time and things escalated to the point where I had the pleasure of witnessing first hand England's finest brands of torture. The rack was singularly unpleasant."

Harry wasn't sure how he felt about these statements, on the one hand they were interesting, and the demon always looked so happy and affectionate when he said these things. The Dursleys had never told Harry things like that or looked at him with a kind smile while holding his hand. On the other hand though whatever the demon had usually contained some sort of implied violence, usually not stated directly, and he said it as if it was supposed to be funny. That always unnerved Harry a little.

In some ways, Harry supposed, it was like having a real family. They would walk around London and women would come up to the demon and say he had the most darling looking son, much later Harry would realize that the women were more interested in the demon and what he could do in the bedroom than they were in cute little Harry but at the time it had always made Harry blush and smile and attempt to hide behind the demon. Harry hadn't remembered ever being anyone's son, the Dursleys had barely claimed him as family, only stating he was their nephew or Dudley's cousin when it was absolutely necessary.

Still, he could never quite forget that the demon was a demon at the end of the day.

He had eyes like a cat sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes. Normally his eyes were a brown that was almost red if you looked too closely at them, the color of mahogany or fall leaves, and Harry always thought they were quite pretty. Sometimes though, and Harry didn't know why, his eyes would get that purple red tint they'd had in the hotel room where they almost seemed to glow and his pupils shrank until they were only dark slivers in his eyes.

He always wore gloves too, or most of the time at least, sometimes when they were alone he'd take the gloves off and his fingernails would be black and on his left hand there was a star just like the one that was on Harry's. The seal, he always called it with an almost affectionate smile, this is the bond that ties us together Harry Potter.

So Harry knew that even if it looked real in public that didn't make it real all the time.

By the time his eighth birthday rolled around he told the demon that he wanted to stop living in hotels and settle down somewhere in London. He still liked seeing things and visiting museums but he also didn't want to pretend to be something that he probably wasn't.

"London, not the suburbs, not like where the Dursley's lived. Okay?"

The demon had looked at him pensively, Harry didn't give too many orders, it felt unnatural to do it. The Dursleys had always given him orders, making him do this and that while Dudley did nothing, and he always remembered the feeling of what it was like to be told to do things constantly before giving an order to the demon. He didn't really want to be anyone's master; he mostly just wanted to be Harry.

So the demon had thought about it for a bit and had taken them to somewhere much different, which was, in the end what Harry had wanted all along. So it was in August of 1988 that Harry and the still unnamed demon moved into the Undertaker's shop in London and Harry's view of the world became just a little bit broader than before.

**Author's Note: I finally got around to this, for the next couple chapters it will mostly be about Harry's life from age 8-11 maybe with a little of the beginning of being 11 put in there as it was in this chapter. Someone asked in a review but I suppose this is good information for everyone to know, this is based off of the anime as canon, not the manga, so heads up and spoilers for that. Thanks for reading and reviewing, you guys are great.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Kuroshitsuji or Harry Potter.**


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